UK Companies House Bulk Scraper — 5M+ UK Companies, No API Key

Extract UK companies from the official Companies House government register — 5+ million active and dissolved businesses, with no API key required. This UK Companies House scraper downloads the free monthly bulk snapshot published by the UK Government and lets you filter the entire register by SIC industry code, location, status, category and company age.

Unlike scrapers that hit the live Companies House REST API (which needs a key and is rate-limited), this Actor uses the free public bulk download — no API key, no rate limit, no captcha. You get the whole UK business register in one run, then filter it down to the exact slice you need for B2B lead generation, KYC, market research or competitive intelligence. The output is clean, structured JSON exportable to CSV or Excel.

✨ What this Actor does / Key features

• Official UK government data — the authoritative Companies House register, refreshed monthly, under the Open Government Licence.
• No API key, no rate limit — uses the free public bulk snapshot, not the rate-limited REST API.
• 5M+ companies — every active and dissolved UK company in a single run.
• Powerful filtering — by SIC code prefix, SIC description keyword, company name, status, category, postcode prefix, post town, county, country and incorporation date range.
• Combined logic — filters are AND-ed together; multiple values within one filter are OR-ed.
• Memory-efficient streaming — streams and parses the ~500 MB compressed CSV without loading it all into memory.
• Early-stop on maxResults — stops pushing once your cap is reached to save time and compute.
• Structured, export-ready output — normalized JSON per company, ideal for JSON, CSV, Excel, CRMs and data warehouses.

🔍 Input

Field	Type	Description
snapshotMonth	string	Which monthly snapshot to use (YYYY-MM). Leave blank for the latest available.
sicCodePrefixes	array	Filter by SIC code prefix, e.g. ["62"] for IT companies, ["58"] for publishing. Multiple prefixes are OR-ed.
sicKeywords	array	Free-text substring match inside the SIC description (case-insensitive), e.g. ["software", "consulting"]. OR-ed.
nameContains	string	Substring filter on company name (case-insensitive).
companyStatuses	array	Statuses to include, e.g. Active, Dissolved, Liquidation, In Administration. Default ["Active"].
companyCategories	array	Categories to include, e.g. Private Limited Company, Public Limited Company, Limited Liability Partnership. Empty = all.
postCodePrefixes	array	UK postcode prefix match, e.g. ["SW1", "EC1"] for central London, ["M"] for Manchester.
postTowns	array	Exact match on post town (case-insensitive), e.g. ["LONDON", "MANCHESTER"].
counties	array	Substring match on county, e.g. ["GREATER LONDON", "WEST MIDLANDS"].
countries	array	Substring match on registered country, e.g. ["ENGLAND", "SCOTLAND", "WALES", "NORTHERN IRELAND"].
incorporatedSince	string	Only companies incorporated on or after this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
incorporatedBefore	string	Only companies incorporated on or before this date (YYYY-MM-DD).
maxResults	integer	Hard cap on saved rows. Set high (e.g. 100000) to keep everything that matches your filters.
logEveryNRows	integer	Print a progress line every N CSV rows. Default 100000.

🚀 Example input

Find every active fintech in central London:

{
  "sicCodePrefixes": ["64", "66"],
  "sicKeywords": ["financial", "payment", "fintech"],
  "postCodePrefixes": ["EC1", "EC2", "EC3", "EC4", "E14"],
  "companyStatuses": ["Active"],
  "maxResults": 5000
}

Find every new (2025+) software company in the UK:

{
  "sicCodePrefixes": ["62"],
  "incorporatedSince": "2025-01-01",
  "companyStatuses": ["Active"],
  "maxResults": 10000
}

📦 Output

Each item in the dataset is one UK company, normalized into clean JSON. Key fields include:

Field	Description
companyName	Registered company name.
companyNumber	Official Companies House company number.
status	Company status (Active, Dissolved, Liquidation, In Administration, etc.).
category	Company category (Private Limited Company, PLC, LLP, etc.).
incorporationDate	Date the company was incorporated.
dissolutionDate	Dissolution date, if applicable.
address	Full registered office address object: line 1, line 2, post town, county, post code, country, care-of, PO box.
sicCodes	Array of up to 4 SIC codes with their text descriptions.
accounts	Accounts data: reference date, next due date, last filed date, account category.
returns	Confirmation statement / annual return next due and last filed.
mortgages	Charge counts: total, outstanding, satisfied, part-satisfied.
previousNames	Up to 10 historical company names with change dates.
url	Direct link to the public Companies House profile (plus the API URL).

Example output record

{
  "companyName": "EXAMPLE FINTECH LTD",
  "companyNumber": "12345678",
  "status": "Active",
  "category": "Private Limited Company",
  "incorporationDate": "2025-03-14",
  "address": {
    "line1": "1 Example Street",
    "postTown": "LONDON",
    "county": "GREATER LONDON",
    "postCode": "EC1A 1AA",
    "country": "ENGLAND"
  },
  "sicCodes": ["64999 - Financial intermediation not elsewhere classified"],
  "url": "https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12345678"
}

💡 Use cases

• B2B lead generation — build hyper-targeted lead lists by industry (SIC) and location (postcode + post town).
• KYC & compliance — verify UK companies against the authoritative government register.
• Market research — analyze the UK business landscape by sector, region, age and status.
• Competitive intelligence — map competitors and adjacent companies within a SIC category.
• Data products & SaaS — power B2B SaaS tools or resell enriched datasets (the data is under the Open Government Licence).
• Finding fresh companies — use incorporatedSince to surface newly formed companies before they appear in third-party databases.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a Companies House API key? No. This Actor uses the free public bulk download that Companies House publishes for everyone — no API key, no rate limit and no captcha.

Is it legal to use this data commercially? Yes. The Companies House register is Crown Copyright data published under the Open Government Licence v3.0, so you may copy, publish, adapt and resell it for commercial or non-commercial use.

How fresh is the data? The bulk snapshot is published monthly, around the 1st of each month. For real-time intra-month changes you would need the paid Companies House REST API. Re-run this Actor each month for the latest snapshot.

How long does a run take? A full scan of the ~5M-row register takes roughly 10–15 minutes depending on filter complexity. The scan duration is the same regardless of maxResults — only the output size changes.

Can I filter by industry and location together? Yes. All filters are combined with AND, so you can stack SIC code prefixes, postcode prefixes, post towns, status and incorporation date for precise targeting. Within a single filter, multiple values are OR-ed.

Does the output include director names or contact details? No. Officer/director names are in a separate Companies House file, and Companies House does not collect email addresses or phone numbers. Enrich the output with your own data provider if you need contact details.

Can I schedule it and what formats are supported? Yes — schedule it to run at the start of each month for the latest snapshot. Results export to JSON, CSV, Excel or XML, or via the Apify API.

⏰ Scheduling & integration

Schedule this Actor on Apify to run monthly so you always have the latest UK company register. Export results to JSON, CSV or Excel, pull them through the Apify API, or connect the dataset to Google Sheets, your CRM, webhooks or a data warehouse for automated lead-gen and compliance workflows.